Archive for the ‘Unionism’ Category
Stormont Crackdown on Black Lives Matter Rallies in Derry and Belfast – Dáil greenIights Special Criminal Court
In Dublin Sinn Féin is the largest Dáil opposition party up against the new right-wing FFFGGG Coalition. In Belfast the same party is part of a coalition headed by the far-right Democratic Unionist Party at Stormont.
The Northern Ireland State is almost a world-leader for practicising racism, bigotry, and discrimination. The “Protestant State for a Protestant People” spent decades discriminating against a nationalist minority. That still happens, but has been scaled down. Rebellions helped – and mass struggle caused progressive legal change – for example the lifting of legal bans on abortion and gay rights. But, in 2020, this state discriminates vigorously against other minorities, especially immigrants.
Derry People Before Profit highlights Sinn Féin moving in the wrong direction on these issues :
Despite Sinn Féin’s claim to be a party interested in fundamental change – they are headed in the opposite direction.
In the North, Sinn Féin support the PSNI crackdown on Black Lives Matter rallies in Derry and Belfast. In the Stormont Assembly Sinn Féin MLAs voted with the DUP and others for Amendment 5 of the Health Regulations to approve the PSNI’s political policing of the Black Lives Matter rally including prosecution threats and fines. By backing Amendment 5 Sinn Féin voted to give the PSNI more enforcement powers even though no other incidents or events – including mass rallies of loyalists and racists to ‘protect statues’ – have been targeted by the PSNI.
Read the rest of this entry »In the South, by abstaining on the vote Sinn Féin gave the greenlight to legislation empowering the Special Criminal Court. Throughout its history Sinn Féin has voted against and called for the non-jury Special Criminal Court to be abolished. They’ve now turned their back on this position.
A West Belfast Republican Funeral Breaches CoronaVirus Restrictions – Trouble Ahead
The Sinn Féin organisers of Bobby Storey’s West Belfast funeral on June 30 2020 got plenty of advance warning – which they chose to ignore.
Suzanne Breen set the scene in the pages of the Belfast Telegraph :
Sinn Fein has adopted an uncompromising approach to fighting coronavirus in Northern Ireland. On school closures, workplace regulations and much more, the party has rightly insisted that health and safety trumps all else.
The funeral of Bobby Storey should be no different. No ifs, buts or maybes. It doesn’t matter that he was Sinn Fein’s northern chairman, spent 20 years in jail, or has heroic status for some in the republican community.
The same guidelines that apply when ordinary folk die apply to Bobby Storey, too. Just imagine the outrage there would be in the nationalist community if loyalists flouted the rules for a UDA or UVF funeral? https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/comment/sinn-fein-should-set-example-at-bobby-storeys-funeral-but-its-a-case-of-do-as-i-say-not-as-i-do-39319738.html
Dominic Cummings moments in the six county statelet :
PBP Belfast Councillor Matt Collins observes
At the risk of sounding repetitive I will make the point again….
The only people in Belfast who have been systematically targeted with fines, cautions and prosecution threats from the PSNI for breaching the regulations during this crisis have been BAME protestors taking part in safe, socially distant Black Lives Matter protests.
Such a fact— in a majority white city with tonnes of examples of proportionally different police treatment to other gatherings — is discrimination by definition.
People should be shouting loudly about this. Those in power keeping quiet about it are increasingly becoming part of the problem in my opinion.
The double standards were also highlighted by Vincent Doherty.
Read the rest of this entry »Bobby Storey Was Gerry Adams’ Beria | The Broken Elbow
Ed Moloney compares Bobby Storey, the lieutenant of Former Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams with Lavrentiy Beria, the number two of Russian dictator Josef Stalin from the late 1930’s till he was executed in infamy after Stalin’s death in 1953.
Beria had a grisly CV
Beria attended the Yalta Conference with Stalin, who introduced him to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt as “our Himmler“. After the war, he organised the Communist takeover of the state institutions in Central Europe and Eastern Europe and political repressions in these countries. Beria’s uncompromising ruthlessness in his duties and skill at producing results culminated in his success in overseeing the Soviet atomic bomb project. Stalin gave it absolute priority, and the project was completed in under five years.After Stalin’s death in March 1953, Beria became First Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union and head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In this dual capacity, he formed a troika, alongside Georgy Malenkov and Vyacheslav Molotov, that briefly led the country in Stalin’s place. A coup d’état by Nikita Khrushchev, with help from Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov in June 1953, removed Beria from power. He was arrested on charges of 357 counts of rape and treason. He was sentenced to death and was executed on 23 December 1953.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavrentiy_Beria?wprov=sfti1
Bobby Storey’s CV is not pretty, especially in relation to the people “disappeared” by the IRA in the 1970’s. Another Beria? Stalin’s lieutenant was a much more sinister figure.
I also suspected then and more so later, that such was his uncritical adoration of the Big Lad that he was either naive in the extreme about Adams, what drove him and where he was going politically, or that he chose cynically to ignore the obvious.
My suspicions in this regard were rooted in the episode I know best about Storey’s relationship with Gerry, and that was about the disappearance of Jean McConville.
In pursuit of the fiction that none of this had anything to do with him, Adams had given Storey the job of finding out what had happened to Mrs McConville, who had been involved in her disappearance and, most importantly, where her remains had been buried.
This was at a point in the peace process when clearing up the issue of the ‘disappeared’ had assumed urgency and priority, so much so that Bill Clinton had taken sides in favour of justice for the disappeared.
For Adams to ask Storey to find out what happened to Jean McConville was like Stalin asking Beria to discover who gave the order to bury an icepick in Trotsky’s skull. Gerry knew, and knows more about what happened to Jean McConville and why, and who was involved in her ‘disappearance’ and how, than anyone still living.
When Storey went to interview Dolours Price he was, according to her account to me, astonished to hear her side of the story, which was of course that Gerry had given the order to ‘the unknowns’ to send Jean McConville to her maker. Clearly Gerry had denied all knowledge and put the blame on others, especially Ivor Bell, a line the British state and their police chiefs dutifully followed in later years.
— Read on thebrokenelbow.com/2020/06/21/bobby-storey-was-gerry-adams-beria/
Many loyal Sinn Féin supporters will not care :
The RUC, who rarely made any secret of their hatred for Storey, had no doubt that he was one of the planners behind the Provos’ mass breakout from the Maze in 1983 when 38 terrorists escaped after a prison officer was killed.
Storey later described the escape as a “great achievement” for the IRA, who he said had “shafted Margaret Thatcher”.
Detectives were also convinced that Storey was the principle organiser of the Northern Bank robbery in Belfast in 2004 that netted the IRA £26million.
But he was never charged in connection with it.
And although he spent a total of 20 years behind bars, Storey had an uncanny record of eluding convictions on a litany of other terrorist charges down the years.
Police claimed witnesses were too scared in some cases to testify against him.
But Sinn Fein claimed police operated a policy of internment by remand for Storey who was a lifelong republican from a republican family.
Talking about his life in a rare interview, Storey said his family had to move when he was a child from their north Belfast home after loyalist attacks on their area.
And he claimed that it was the bombing of McGurk’s bar, where 15 people were killed in 1971 and Bloody Sunday just a few months later, that shaped his future, prompting him to join the IRA at the age of 16.
Lessons?
The leader is not always right. Leadership cults should be mocked.
Armando Iannucci relentlessly tears the Stalin cult to pieces in this film.
And, we should honour the memory of many innocent victims whose lives were wrecked by Lavrentiy Beria.
Brilliant Mockery of the Stalin Cult
Lavrentiy Beria and his loyal Stalinist killers
Bernadette Devlin retains Mid-Ulster Westminster Seat June 1970 – June 2020 campaigns because Black Lives Matter!
50 years ago, on June 19 1970, Bernadette Devlin, an Independent socialist candidate, retained the Mid-Ulster Westminster seat she first won in a 1969 by-election. She continued to use these impressive electoral victories as platforms for building progressive mass movements. She is still a very committed political activist.
Viva Bernadette!
The RTÉ report below includes one significant mistake. In North Antrim the reactionary far-right rabble-rouser Ian Paisley won the North Antrim Westminster seat for the first time, unseating the sitting Unionist MP.
Protestant Unionist Paisley won the Stormont Bannside constituency in 1969, former seat of ex-Stormont Prime Minister Terence O’Neill, a right-winger not right wing enough for the Unionist Party.
Read the rest of this entry »The Workers’ Party in Ireland Splits Again
Gavin Mendel-Gleason, a supporter of the WP wing which has expelled the “northern business committee” makes a statement open to possible alarming interpretations :
While they would have been afraid to move with Sean Garland still alive, they saw their chance with his death.
A sister party in the foreign fields of North Korea is also called the Workers’ Party.
Was the WP northern business committee trying to avoid a fate similar to the late Kim Jong-Nam after he fell out with his brother Kim Jong-Un? Presumably Gavin Mendel-Gleason does not have the same clout as Seán Garland or the leaders of the Kim dynastic family? Read the rest of this entry »
CoVid-19 Has Taken Tarlach Mac Niallais From Us in New York – A Courageous Fighter from North Belfast who “Saved Sodomy from Ulster”
We are starting to lose comrades and friends dying before their time. I met Tarlach a few times in the 1980’s, a courageous member of People’s Democracy, a brilliant up-front fighter for Gay Liberation Politics – and the then-partner of Fergus O’Hare. Huge condolences to Fergus who has suffered an awful sudden and unforeseen loss. Many tributes will be written about Tarlach. – John Meehan
The article below, from the Irish News, is great humane journalism. It brings us up close to the very harsh reality of a CoVid-19 Death.
I picked it up via a Facebook link supplied by Fergus, who offers these thoughts :
Read the rest of this entry »Comhbhrón ó chroí lena theaghlach agus lena chairde uilig faoi bhás Tarlach. Tá an saol níos boichte agus níos dorcha gan é. Ag caoineadh an chailliúint mhór seo.
Fergus O’Hare
Stormont Health Minister Robin Swann Offers CoronaVirus Unnecessary Deaths in Ireland – North, South, East and West
Professor Gabriel Scally came to the attention of many people in Ireland because of his no-holds-barred examination of a Cervical Smear Scandal in the Irish Health Service. https://www.thejournal.ie/scally-review-outsourcing-labs-4677380-Jun2019/
Scally assesses the behaviour of Stormont Government Health Minister Robin Swann (recent leader of the Ulster Unionist Party)
Professor Gabriel Scally writes :
Ridiculous assertion on BBC from N Ireland minister @RobinSwannMoH
“the RoI has worse #corvid19 position than N Ireland.”
The South has more cases. But that’s because they have 32 community based testing stations. The North has ZERO and stopped testing in communities last week https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1240923430318456832
Here is A Sharp Comment
Siubhán O’Connor@siubhanoc·Replying to @GabrielScally and @RobinSwannMoHSwann is so utterly blinded by his bias…ppl in the South with NO SYMPTOMS are getting tested where they are deemed ‘at risk’. Our maintenance man has COPD & has been referred for test. 2 day wait. NI is in serious trouble
The Irish Examiner Reports “Public health specialist Dr Gabriel Scally, Honorary Professor of Public Health in Bristol University, has described the UK’s policy on Covid-19 as “way out of line” with the rest of Europe and advice from the World Health Organisation.
“I think it’s dangerous. Their view really is let this fire burn and they will try and damp it down where they can and spread it out over a period of time.
“But we know from elsewhere in the world that if countries and communities act fast, this can be kept under control and knocked back.”
The UK approach is similar to the old adage: “Everyone is out of step with our Johnny”, he said.
“If the UK has got it right, then the rest of the world has got it wrong. And I don’t think that’s likely.
“I think it’s displayed by some of their appalling science that they’re talking about, using herd immunity.
They are reliant on mathematical modelling but this is not a mathematical modelling issue.
Dr Scally said that if there was one threat to how things are being handled in the Republic of Ireland, it is the UK’s position.
People in Northern Ireland need to be demanding better from their leaders and they themselves need to do a better job.
“They’re following along blindly this notion that somehow all of the wisdom is emanating from Number 10 Downing Street and we know that to be wrong.
“Even the United States is taking a more proactive approach than the UK.” https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/closing-borders-would-make-things-worse-says-disease-prevention-and-control-expert-988199.html
Readers should also note from the Irish Examiner report that Public Health Experts Oppose the Closing of Borders
“Dr Agoritsa Baka said that given there is already community transmission of the virus in European countries, “we need to collaborate to make sure everyone can deal with the virus in a coordinated way.”
Closing borders would make things worse, she said and would negatively affect the function of healthcare systems, as was seen during the Ebola outbreak in 2014.
Dr Baka said that if, for example, Germany closed its border “everything, like food supplies, personal protection equipment cannot move around Europe, and it would be a disaster.”
Let’s Get Real – Swann Must Go! The Stormont Health Minister has already guaranteed unnecessary death and illness in the North of Ireland – and, because so many people travel daily across the Irish Border in both directions, Swann has guaranteed unnecessary death and illness in the South East and West of Ireland.
CoronaVirus Kills Orange Marches
There is a Silver Lining in Every Cloud
The Boris Johnson/Arlene Foster CoronaVirus Inaction Strategy “Government tipping Britain towards huge death toll”
Actions of the Dublin and Belfast Governments Confronting the CoronaVirus Health Crisis Diverge.
Phil Hearse’s attached article graphically explains the “death cult” plan of Prime Minister Johnson and his Adviser Dominic Cummings.
Here are the views of a genuine expert, Professor Gabriel Scally
The nonsense in England about the #publichealth concept of ‘herd immunity’ is shocking. The Government’s Chief Scientist is a former researcher in vascular biology and for over a decade has been working on R&D for a major pharmaceutical company. Where’s the public health voice?
https://mobile.twitter.com/GabrielScally/status/1238761911459733504?s=04
Stormont First Minister Arlene Foster is faithfully implementing the Johnson plan –
Serious Questions Arise Over Sinn Féin Participation in the Belfast Devolved Government.
TV journalist Robert Peston has summed up the government’s virus strategy as follows:
The strategy of the British government in minimising the impact of Covid-19 is to allow the virus to pass through the entire population so that we acquire herd immunity, but at a much delayed speed so that those who suffer the most acute symptoms are able to receive the medical support they need, and such that the health service is not overwhelmed and crushed by the sheer number of cases it has to treat at any one time.[1]In other words, you’ve all got to get the virus, and then we’ll be OK. Except we won’t. Jeremy Rossman of Kent Universityestimates that the herd immunity strategy would require 70% of the population to get the disease, or 47 million people. He says:
Achieving herd immunity would require well over 47 million people to be infected in the UK. Current estimates are that COVID-19 has a 2.3% case-fatality rate and a 19% rate of severe disease. This means that achieving herd immunity to COVID-19 in the UK could result in the deaths of more a million people with a further eight million severe infections requiring critical care.[2]
This strategy, which the Financial Times attributes to Dominic Cummings, is an exercise in brutal eugenics. As Owen Jones argues, poorer people are much more likely to have underlying health conditions and weaker immune systems. He says:
A decade of austerity, and a social order that deprives millions of citizens of a comfortable existence, will mean many more deaths in the coming weeks and months that could have been avoided. The government’s determination to discover a vaccine for coronavirus must be accompanied by a renewed commitment to addressing poverty. Like every crisis, this one is likely to affect working-class and poor people worst. That is not inevitable. It’s a choice – and one within our power to stop, if only we had the will to do so.[3]
The Johnson/Cummings strategy is basically to let poor people and old people die. No wonder a Daily Telegraph journalist said that the virus might mean ‘an economically beneficial cull of over-80s’.[4]
— Read on www.timetomutiny.org/post/government-strategy-tipping-britain-towards-huge-death-toll
On Saturday March 14 Stormont Bosses Michelle O’Neill and Arlene Foster aired public policy differences
When asked about the different approaches being taken on the island, she said: “In terms of the co-operation I don’t think the co-operation could be any better between our chief medical officers, between our ministers of health and between the Government of Ireland and the Northern Ireland Executive.”
Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill repeated a call she made on Friday that Northern Ireland should follow the Republic’s lead and close schools.
She said: “People are taking decisions in advance of government and my own personal opinion is that schools should close now.
I think the fact that you can have two schools a mile apart and one school’s open and one school’s closed, that’s a very confusing picture and a very confusing message for the public.”
Mrs Foster said both governments had “very coherent messages” and that Stormont is taking advice from the Public Health Agency and the chief medical officer on when was the appropriate time to shut schools.
There are two different jurisdictions on this island and we may do things differently in terms of timing, but the tools are all the same in terms of what we are going to do to try and combat this virus,” she said.
Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald, who was not at the meeting, said the UK’s response to coronavirus “should be rejected” and is “totally unacceptable in the north of Ireland”.
Stormont, Lord Carson’s Crypt, Is Back to Normal – Time for Sinn Féin to Evacuate.
Renewable Heat Initiative at Stormont …where incompetence carries no sanction – Cash for Ash| Tommy McKearney
In the North of Ireland the Chuckle-Sisters Foster and O’Neill (Democratic Unionist Party-Sinn Féin) Escape Sanction.
The minister in charge of the department responsible for the scheme was briefed of its flaws by whistleblower Janette O’Hagan as early as 2013. Nevertheless, in spite of this she remained oblivious to what thousands of others knew and exploited. Moreover, having inexplicably failed to read the legislation she presented to the Assembly, Mrs Foster felt and continues to feel under no obligation to do the honourable thing and offer her resignation. On the contrary, the DUP leader has actually been rewarded and now acts as First Minister of Northern Ireland.
Across the corridor from Mrs Foster sits Michelle O’Neill who throughout the years of the ‘Cash for Ash’ scandal was Stormont’s Minister for Agriculture. Notwithstanding the fact that a majority of those installing biomass boilers were poultry farmers, the minister apparently remained blissfully unaware of the lucrative scheme that many of her constituents and supporters were availing of. However, as with Arlene Foster, this prolonged period of somnambulance has had no detrimental impact on Ms O’Neil’s career. She now holds the position of Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister
— Read on http://www.tommymckearney.com/blog-/stormont-where-incompetence.html
Tomás Ó Flatharta 